Property titan from China removed from stock exchange following sharp decline

Chinese property giant Evergrande’s shares were taken off the Hong Kong stock market on Monday after more than a decade and a half of trading.

It marks a grim milestone for what was once China’s biggest real estate firm, with a stock market valuation of more than $50bn (£37.1bn). That was before its spectacular collapse under the weight of the huge debts that had powered its meteoric rise.

Experts say the delisting was both inevitable and final.

“Once delisted, there is no coming back,” says Dan Wang, China director at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

Evergrande is now best-known for its part in a crisis that has for years dragged on the world’s second-largest economy.

Just a few years ago Evergrande Group was a shining example of China’s economic miracle.

Its founder and chairman Hui Ka Yan rose from humble beginnings in rural China to top the Forbes list of Asia’s wealthiest people in 2017.

His fortune has since plummeted from an estimated $45bn in 2017 to less than a billion, his fall from grace as extraordinary as his company’s.

In March 2024, Mr Hui was fined $6.5m and banned from China’s capital market for life for his company overstating its revenue by $78bn.

Liquidators are also exploring whether they can recover cash for creditors from Mr Hui’s personal property.

At the time of its collapse, Evergrande had some 1,300 projects under development in 280 cities across China.

The sprawling empire also included an electric carmaker and China’s most successful football team Guangzhou FC, which was kicked out of the football league earlier this year after failing to pay off enough of its debts.

Evergrande was built on $300bn (£222bn) of borrowed money, earning it the unenviable title of the world’s most indebted property developer.